Following the successful anti-terrorism fatwa in March 2010 and anti-terror summer camp in August 2010, a leading Islamic authority Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri spoke at the GPU event on Sunday 24 October 2010 and condemned terrorism and suicide bombings and urged audience to stand up against terrorism.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri started his passionate and powerful speech by declaring that Islam stands for peace, love, compassion, human dignity and mercy. He said “Islam does not stand for any kind of violence, militancy, terrorism, brutality.”

He said “This is Islam which came at a time when the dignity of mankind was lost, there was brutality, violence and people were cutting their necks. At that time there was racial, religious and tribal discrimination and there was no respect for slaves. At that time Islam stood up for the poor and oppressed people, orphans, and women and gave respect and dignity to the mankind irrespective of their race, religion and culture. This is Islam which came for promotion of global peace and mercy and dignity.”

He said “I want to communicate this message of Islam to whole mankind. People have misled the the youth by wrong perceptions of Islam.” He said he wants to speak about:

“Jihad: Perception and Reality”

The perception that jihad is a holy-war is completely wrong and younger generation has been misled. It is due to various reasons. Jihad is seen as an act of violence which is against the concept of jihad.

Dr Qadri clarified that “the literal meaning of jihad is exertion, struggling, striving, and putting extreme efforts according to extreme abilities, to counter evil, to achieve good for sake of Allah.”

He added that “The defensive struggle against your enemy, defensive struggle against your lower-self, hatred, arrogance, corruption is one dimension of jihad. And this is for the Safety for mankind not for killing of mankind."

Dr Qadri said “he wants to address the Muslim audience who are misguided or mislead and to the western world that there is NO verse which advocates killing, brutality and terrorism.”

“There are only 4 verses available in the Quran which mention lawful defensive warfare and it is has been mentioned in the context of jihad. Every country has the right for self-defence according to the international law and the United Nations; these verses are same for self-defence only.”

Dr Qadri said "Let me make it very clear and sound, let me remove any ambiguity that no leader or a group has any authority to declare jihad. If any leader or a group do that it is terrorism and not jihad."

He also made it clear that “it is solely the prerogative of a state authority to declare jihad and only as a last resort when diplomacy and all other efforts to make peace have failed.”

Declaration against terrorism

Finally he said “Islam has no link to terrorism and any terrorist is a disbeliever.” He asked the audience “to support a declaration against terrorism and to raise their hands and stand up against suicide bombing and terrorism.” The whole crowd stood up and agreed with Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri.

Dr Qadri has been promoting the anti-extremism message in the UK since he issued his 600-page fatwa on terrorism. In the summer he spoke at the 3-day residential anti-terror camp. He will be speaking to a Washington DC audience next month.